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“You. Betrayer. You dared to use my name as your own.”
My ribs trembled and my chest hurt just being this close to the demon. Harry, who had a large fist around his throat, couldn’t say anything at all.
“You dare pretend to be a prince of demons, one of the most terrible of our kind? You think you have that power? That presence?”
Again, Harry could not reply, but I was gathering that this was more of a one-demon kind of conversation anyway.
“What a pathetic mockery you are, Sirruner. A lesser demon of such grand ambitions should not attempt to step on the necks of those greater than him. You aren’t even worthy of licking the shit from my boots.”
Harry’s face was almost purple. I dove for Belphegor’s fist, but I was too late. He lifted Harry over his head and ripped him in half.
Blood spilled down, soaking me head to toe, and then Belphegor dropped the pieces next to me.
I choked out a gasp, looking at the dangling bits of intestine hanging out of the body, his once-handsome face now expressionless and empty. I gagged but fought against the bile pressing at the back of my throat and wiped the thick blood out of my eyes.
Two more cloaked figures decided this was a good time to cut and run. Belphegor caught hold of one of them before he could get away and growled, “Cowards.” Then he bit off the top half of the man’s body and hurled the rest across the field, where it knocked down the other retreating figure. She screamed.
A half dozen small birds, black as ink and with bat wings instead of feathers, emerged from the pit and immediately set about clawing and biting anyone near them, whether they were cult or my people. Holden slapped one of them right back into the pit, and it gurgled profane-sounding Latin at him.
Enochian, I corrected myself. Harry had told me the demons spoke Enochian.
Belphegor made to reach for Ingrid, who was almost through the line of remaining cultists. I stopped staring like an idiot and realized that if we were going to stop this, I’d need to put on my big-girl panties and go a couple of rounds with a very large demon prince.
I drove my sword directly into his bare foot, which was only a few feet away from me.
Belphegor howled and recoiled from Ingrid.
“How dare you?”
“Like this,” I snapped, pulling the sword free and then slicing it across his heel, severing the tendon.
I was already running away when he began to scream. I needed to get clear of the rest of the fight and make him follow me. My group could deal with the cultists and the smaller demons, but this motherfucker was all mine.
Demons are thankfully, at their core, like any other evil being. Their needs are simple, driven by base emotions like rage and lust, and what Belphegor wanted in that immediate moment, even more than he wanted Hell on Earth, was to turn me into a hat he could wear.
He thudded after me, only slightly slowed by his new injuries. But now he was distracted from the rest of the fight and wouldn’t be bringing any of the dead back to life.
Even if this only bought a few seconds, that was enough time for Ingrid to get to Sig and for the group to close the gate.
I hoped, anyway.
As I ran, a vivid memory came to me, so sharply it almost hurt, and for the first time since she’d shown it to me, I understood what it was.
I could see the pattern as if it were burned into my eyes, and as I looked ahead to the blackness of the Lawn, every time I blinked, the figures were visible on the ground.
My heart skipped a beat, a new thrill of excitement urging me on, as I finally knew precisely what I had to do next.
In spite of running as fast as I could go, Belphegor easily caught up with me in a few quick strides, and I had to tuck and roll to avoid being scooped up by his massive hand.
I dug my sword into the grass and used it to get back to my feet, then dragged the blade behind me as I darted backwards, looping around behind the demon.
“You cannot possibly hope to outrun me, little one. Stay still, and I will make your death fast.”
“No, thanks.” I shifted directions, my blade still in the ground, tracing my steps back and ducking under his legs as he attempted to spin around to locate me. He stomped the ground where I’d been, narrowly missing smushing me under his giant feet.
“We will not be stopped this time.” He sounded sure of himself, the way only the really big villains could. As if there was simply nothing powerful enough to stand between them and what they wanted.
“You guys are going to, what, overrun the planet, turn it into a new Hell, that sort of thing?” I stopped running for a moment and played with the sword, acting bored by the entire discussion.
